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This story was submitted to the People’s War website by Marie on behalf of Joy and has been added to the site with her permission. Joy fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

Mum didn’t want us to be evacuated and separated from her, so we went to live in the New Forest to avoid the bombing. Just before D-Day we were in Burley and there were lots of Amercian soldiers there. They held a dance and I remember mum had to ask permission to go from her employers as she was a married woman. It ‘s interesting how attitudes have changed over the years. They finally said she could go and us kids had a great time — we got there early and stood outside the hall begging chewing gum!

For V.E. Day, there was a street party being held in Napier Road in Southsea. As my Dad was still in the Far East fighting the Japanese, mum said she didn’t think we should go. But in the end she changed her mind and we had a great time. It was amazing what they managed to put together considering rationing. It’s strange what we got used to — I hated the dried egg we got unless it was made up into an omelette — I loved it like that and I’m tempted to try and recreate it again with the powdered egg you can buy nowadays in some supermarkets. We were quite lucky though as Dad would send over food parcels from Australia so we had bananas although we didn’t know what they were! And the family he was stationed with sent me a beautiful double jointed doll made out of white leather and Christmas cake which was lovely.

Dad didn’t come back until a lot later though. After V.J. Day his ship had to go back to America and then he finally came back on the Queen Mary.

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